Winter Park brings back its ice skater paradise

It’s not exactly a case of lights, camera, action, Dave Buchheit noted, but this year it sure comes close.

The city kicks off its annual Winter in the Park event today, which includes the holiday ice skating rink presented by the Community Redevelopment agency.

Buchheit, the CRA manger, said this year will include some extra special delights.

“This year, we have a 35-foot-wide wall projection set that we built,” he said. “We show a five minute video that we had custom made for our event. That is something new that families can enjoy, and it’s really cool.”

The video is designed to help capture that holiday spirit, he said.

“It starts out with a cottage indoors, with holiday presents -- and the presents start opening and animating,” he said. “A plane will fly out of one of the boxes. You kind of walk over to the window and look out the window, and the gifts start figure skating with each other on the ice. Then it transitions from that into a sleigh ride.”

CRA had the video produced by a company in Winter Springs, he said, as an added bonus to this year’s ice skating rink, which runs today throughSunday, Jan. 11, in Central Park West Meadow at 150 N. New York Ave.

“To my knowledge, and talking to our ice rink experts, we’re the only one to have a show in conjunction with ice skating,” he said.

Another unique addition this year, he said, is 32 high powered LED lights that change color in accordance with the music being played.

“Instead of having just white lights in the tent, we can change the lights in the tent to match the show,” Buchheit said, adding that he hopes these additions boost attendance this year.

“One of the reasons why we wanted to do it is this is free to get in,” he said. “You pay if you want to skate, but it’s free to go into the rink.”

In fact, rising attendance helped pay for the new lights and the video.

“Because of the increased attendance last year, we’re able to do the upgrades,” he said. “Last year we almost hit 20,000 skaters. We did 19,500 skaters and 30,000 people.”

The rink will be open Mondays through Thursdays from 3-9 p.m.; Fridays from 3-10 p.m.; Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sundays, from noon to 8 p.m.

“The beautiful thing about it is it’s bringing people to Winter Park,” Buchheit said. “The holidays here are spectacular, with the globe lights we string outside. The hope here is this is something people go and do with the entire family.”

For more information, call 407-599-3203.

There are some special deals and offers today and this weekend. Today, guests can skate all day for half-price, for $6 per skater. On Saturday and Sunday, guests are encouraged to visit the Disney giveaway station from noon to 5 p.m., for cool giveaways.

That includes a chance to win the movie “Maleficent” on DVD.

There will also be chances to win the movie “Planes: Fire & Rescue” on DVD, and there will be prizes from Disney's “Frozen” – including the opportunity to take pictures inside the life-sized Frozen snow globe, and a chance to win “Frozen: Sing-Along” on DVD.